To believe, even though shredded, even though crazy and impossible, this is where faith goes to live or to die.
To put it all on the line. To bear hope. To look into a mother’s eyes and tell her you believe her dead little girl can live….It is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.
It is still hard.
A baby died last night.
Something I will never get used to. Even though this is the fourth human being in my community of women to die this month. Aids. Starvation. All just another word for stealing.
But this is not just any baby. This is a baby I held in my arms. A baby whose life I thought would be saved.
On Friday, I noticed one of our mothers who was making necklaces had the thinnest armed baby I had ever seen strapped to her back. Thin like the Ethiopian hunger commercials I used to watch as a child. Thin, as in death sentence. It was the first time she had brought her into our compound.
We called her into my office and found out that she has Aids. There was no money for formula. So her mother made a choice. Breastfeed her today and she lives. Hardly a choice at all. But the baby is starving now, refusing to eat. At first, I want to rush her to the hospital, but the mother says she’s already been that day and gotten medicine and the baby just needs to eat.
So we buy her formula and a dropper and we show her how to use it. And we pray. The whole time this little one is pushing my hand away from her head.
And I think, “This one is strong. She will live.” Come back Monday, we say, if she isn’t better and we’ll go to the hospital again. We give her our phone numbers just in case.
On Sunday night, just a few hours too short, that little girl died.
I fall to my knees and cry, completely broken.
I open my bible to John and the first thing I read is from the story of Lazarus: “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory, if you believe?”
And then I remember a story. In Mozambique, a baby dead for 3 days, comes back to life. I feel the buyoncy of faith begin to rise again.
I hold onto that testimony because it bolsters me. It makes me believe for the impossible, when my unbelief creeps in. I don’t have enough faith for this. And I need the faith of others around the world to ignite in sparks across the dark landscape.
Today, we went to a funeral and we sang worship songs through mud-tracked tears.
We prayed. We asked and we commanded. We were desperate. We were joyful. We were angry. We were at peace. We hugged. We held onto a mother with a broken heart and we rocked her. And four women got saved because of all the love there between us.
And a baby did not get up and live.
But I am not giving up. Tomorrow I will carry this tattered heart to the edge of insanity and I will ask again.
